Paul Thares – 2/9/2016

Northwest South Dakota SET region Civic Forum.

In August of 2015, South Dakota USDA Rural Development and SDSU Extension Community Development Team announced that a northwest South Dakota Region was selected as a Stronger Economies Together (SET) region. This region consists of Perkins, Corson, and the northern part of Meade counties. The northwest South Dakota Region is now benefiting from a focused initiative to explore regional economic advantages and to formulate an economic blueprint for their multi-county SET region that strategically builds on the current and emerging economic strengths of that region. In short, SET is a regional economic development planning process, where the end result is to have a High Quality plan written and ready to implement when the process is complete.

A group of people that comprises the northwest South Dakota SET Region held their first meeting on January 13, 2016, in Lemmon. There were government/elected officials, an educator, business owners, economic development representatives and a person who stated they were a concerned citizen that participated.

Strengths

They discussed strengths of the region and came up with the following (* means it was a top vote getter):

·         Agriculture*

·         Recreation-hunting, fishing, watersports, tourism*

·         Cooperation of Groups and Organization*

·         History*

·         People-independent, work ethic, self-reliant*

·         Transportation

·         Unique educational opportunities

·         Rural-yet connected to world

·         Diverse educational opportunities

Challenges

The group looked at challenges, below is their list (*means it was a top vote getter):

·         Lack of housing*

·         Lack of Labor-technical skill sets*

·         Volatile Energy & Ag prices*

·         Population-declining, aging, moving to cities*

·         Geographic isolation-high cost of supplies*

·         Distance to services*

·         Communication-cell reception, low bandwidth, poor mail service

·         Transportation-road systems, public transportation

They reviewed data from the region and recognized the following:

Opportunities

Then participants discussed opportunities and came up with the following:

Bring in more jobs

Provide technical education opportunities

·         Develop skill sets/trades

·         Entrepreneurial – Rise in startup business

·         Satellite education training facilities

o    Train Work force

·         Carpentry, electrician, plumbing, welding

·         Service jobs-workforce build within

o    CNA, nursing home

Showcase & Market

·         Recreation---Quality of Life

·         Draw people to live

·         Market the Region

·         Identify-2nd jobs-spouse

·         Miles to work---Low Crime

o    Quality of life

·         Movie (Reverent), John Lopez, Rendezvous

·         Showcase History

o    Prehistoric

o    Destination-tourism

o    History-trail, map

§  Cattle ranch

§  Rodeo

§  Sitting Bull

§  Indian battle

·         Tourism District

·         Circuit Pow wows

Moving Forward

Over the course of the next several months there will be monthly updates on what this northwest South Dakota SET region is accomplishing. The region will be joining 21 other regions across thirteen states participating in SET during 2015/2016. South Dakota has benefited greatly by this regional coaching opportunity, this is the third year engaging with regions to increase regional economic competitiveness and collaboration of resources through the SET process.

The Stronger Economies Together (SET) Program is sponsored by USDA Rural Development (USDA RD), in partnership with the Southern Rural Development Center, its three sister Regional Rural Development Centers, and their land-grant university colleagues

- See more at: http://igrow.org/community-development/communities/set-v-northwest-south...